Who is your ally? Political parties as elite allies of immigrant associations locally

Abstract

Cities and towns are the proximity context where immigrants interact with political actors who can channel their demands. Treating immigration as a salient policy field in this setting reveals how political parties and immigrant associations relate to each other. In this paper, I study when political parties become (or do not become) elite allies of immigrant associations following the approval of policies of exclusion at the local level.To answer my question, I qualitatively study the interaction between these actors with regards to the approval of two policies in two cities in Catalonia, Spain: the burka regulation in Lleida and the exclusion of undocumented immigrants from the local census in Vic. The findings make evident that local factors related to the political conflict over immigration and the associational web provide immigrant associations with varying degrees of agency that condition their relationships with political parties as elite allies.

Transnational City Networks on Migration and Integration and Local Collaborative Governance: Establishing the Nexus

“…It has assumed an overall progressive and consistent approach to migrant integration, led by the center-left Socialist Party of Catalonia (1978–2011), the center-right Catalan nationalist Convergence and Union (2011–2015), and the radical-left political platform Barcelona in Common (BeC) (currently in power 4 ) (Bazurli 2019). Beneficial to its approach to immigrant integration is the quasi-federal Spanish administrative model that makes the subnational level (regions and municipalities) responsible for socioeconomic areas related to integrating immigrants, such as housing, health, education, and antidiscrimination (Triviño-Salazar 2020).…”

“…In the migration literature, nonstate actors’ incorporation as allies, partners, and coproducers of local policies reflects the different political and policy directions that cities follow in overall migration governance (Filomeno 2017; Zapata-Barrero et al 2017). Nonstate actors’ incorporation into migration governance in cities has been connected to local politics (Caponio and Jones-Correa 2018), specifically to who is in power (De Graauw and Vermeulen 2016), to the local politicization of migration-related issues (Nicholls and Uitemark 2016), and to nonstate actors’ mobilization in response to political opportunities (Triviño-Salazar 2020). Nonstate actors’ presence locally has also been connected to contesting restrictive national policy frameworks on migration (Campomori and Ambrosini 2020), as well as to advocacy platforms for migrant rights (Ambrosini and Boccagni 2015).…”

Representing the People: Latin American Councilors and Their Pathway to Power and Political Representation in Spain

“…Although citizenship regimes or the broader context of reception are important factors to explain the political incorporation of immigrants, this article focuses primarily on the role of parties, and more specifically on their candidates' selection processes. Political parties act as key "gatekeepers" for minorities (Donovan, 2007;Geddes, 1998;Saggar, 2000;Triviño-Salazar, 2020) by directly controlling who enters the electoral competition. This is especially relevant in electoral systems based on closed and blocked lists (Bird et al, 2010) as in the Spanish case.…”